Changes at the top

[roddy]

Hello all, 

 

Quite big and good news for the forum. 

 

It's been clear for a while I'm not as engaged with the forum as I used to be. For some time I've thought I should pass the site on to another willing steward to, hopefully, keep it up and running until the http protocol is finally retired. I did sound out a few folk about this, but the people who immediately came to mind weren't keen.

 

During October's set of recurrent outages, I got an email from Mike Love of Pleco, saying that if I was having trouble managing the site he'd be willing to take it over. This seemed like a good solution to me - Mike's been around for ages, he's always been a valuable contributor, and he's got the technical skills to keep things running smoothly behind the scenes (which, as we've seen, I lack). There's no money changing hands - the site doesn't owe me anything and I'm glad it'll be in a safer pair of hands.

 

So the plan would be that in the next month or two we'll shift the site onto Mike's own hosting and he'll start taking over the management. I'll be around for a while to come, but will be in more of a "Oh, that breaks because in 2013 I..." and "I know them, they've been trying to post on here since 2008" role. There won't be any major changes you'll notice (except perhaps good ones like the site working more reliably). At some point I'll hand in my admin badge and demote myself to member, which I'm actually quite looking forward to - I think I might visit more if I'm not in charge of the place. 

 

There's obviously a bit more to say in the near future, not least some thanks for both your patience (which was appreciated) and your impatience (because it shows you love the place) recently, and a grateful salute to the mods who keep things ticking away behind the scenes. But I'll leave it at that for now.

 

Chinese-forums.com万岁！

 

Roddy

 

 

[abcdefg]

Sounds like an intelligent solution! It seems inadequate to just say "thank you for your many years of leadership and service," but I will start with that anyhow. If I feel wordy later, I'll return and do a Ninja edit, adding some lines about how helpful you and Imron were to me personally during the early days of my Chinese journey. I will be forever grateful for your inspiration and guidance. Look forward to getting the benefit of Mike's skills and knowledge in coming months. 

[Tomsima]

Great news, thanks for everything Roddy, particularly the fun times with Waste Tide during Covid, getting angry at that book with you really kept me going! The fact that you've got Mike set up to take the reins is testament to your class as an admin for this forum.  

[mikelove]

Hey everyone!

 

Very glad to be able to come in and help carry this site forward hopefully long into the future.

 

I do want to emphasize that I’m *not* looking to Pleco-infuse anything here; I might put a small “sponsored by Pleco” link somewhere, but that’s about all I’m considering. If you want to start a thread an out how Pleco sucks and such-and-such other app is far superior, feel free.

 

(4.0-related dunking is also fine, though in this case it seems like Having A Reputation For Keeping Something Working Smoothly For Many Years But With Annoyingly Few Changes is actually maybe a desirable quality)
 

My motivations for taking this on are mostly a combination of:

 

a) long time fan / user wanting to keep it going; and

 

b) a sense of concern about the recent degradation of centralized social media (Reddit, Twitter, StackExchange), and a desire to make sure that there remains a place to discuss China-related stuff that’s totally independent of all of that.

 

Aside from tidying things up and improving uptime, the biggest improvement I’d be interested in would be looking at ways to further b) by giving people more ways to follow discussions here without visiting the website - ActivityPub feeds, for example. I’m also a little interested - and I suppose this one is a *bit* Pleco-related - in whether this might be a good place for hosting more flashcard lists / audio lessons / etc, in a slightly more organized and possibly API-infused way. And as someone who has drummed up a lot of business from this site over the years, I hope it can continue being a place for people to launch new products and receive critical-but-constructive feedback on them ?

 

Anyway, again, happy to be able to do this and feedback / suggestions are warmly welcome - I’m about to get off a train (actually going to NYC to try out the new Apple VR headset, a subject on which I am legally forbidden from saying any more than that) but will reach out to individual mods shortly too.

 

Best,

 

Michael Love

[PerpetualChange]

Thanks Roddy for all your stewardship over the years, and it sounds like the forum is in a great place with Mike. 

 

I have been part of several forums over the years that die because someone who doesn't have the same bandwidth they once did would rather let their forum die than pass it over to those who care about it. Happy to see this place won't be sharing the same fate as those places. 

[Moshen]

Quote

whether this might be a good place for hosting more flashcard lists / audio lessons / etc, in a slightly more organized and possibly API-infused way.

 

Welcome Mike - and just to let you know that I don't have a clue what you mean by the above.

[mikelove]

 

On 11/13/2023 at 10:16 AM, Moshen said:

and just to let you know that I don't have a clue what you mean by the above.

Yeah, that was a little addled-sounding - basically I think it could be interesting to host Chinese-related files here that third party apps might tap into, like flashcard lists; no reason to have a word list for such and such textbook only available on a 10 year old website somewhere.

[matteo]

Thanks Roddy for keeping things running all these years, that's amazing passion and perseverance! Passing things on to Mike sounds like a good decision, hopefully we'll still see you around more often than not!!

[TheBigZaboon]

Yeah, me too.

 

Thanks...

 

Sincerely,

 

TBZ 

[becky82]

On 11/13/2023 at 9:26 PM, mikelove said:

I might put a small “sponsored by Pleco” link somewhere, but that’s about all I’m considering. If you want to start a thread an out how Pleco sucks and such-and-such other app is far superior, feel free.

 

I just want to say I'm comfortable with a Pleco ad.  It's a high-quality app, I (for one) use it basically daily, and is not constantly badgering me for money.  I heavily utilize its Chinese-Chinese dictionaries.

[Jim]

I can't believe you've sold out to Big Lexicography ? More seriously, thank you both, and I think forums will make a comeback, it's a format serves a niche other types of social media can't.

[cncorrect]

This is a good place for people who love different culture and get inspired. The user interface is great.

[roddy]

Thanks, all. I was quietly confident the move would be welcomed and I'm glad to see I was right, and it's also great to see some old names still here.

 

On 11/14/2023 at 5:51 AM, Jim said:

I can't believe you've sold out to Big Lexicography

Can't fight the dictionary-industrial complex, Jim.

[Explore Chinese]

Huge fan of the site and happy that it's continuing to provide benefit to the Chinese language learning community! Appreciate the efforts of you both and the contributions to our community.

[Lu]

On 11/13/2023 at 5:05 PM, mikelove said:

no reason to have a word list for such and such textbook only available on a 10 year old website somewhere.

Absolutely. You need a twenty-year-old website for that kind of thing. ?

 

Glad to have you aboard Mike!

 

On 11/13/2023 at 2:26 PM, mikelove said:

a sense of concern about the recent degradation of centralized social media (Reddit, Twitter, StackExchange), and a desire to make sure that there remains a place to discuss China-related stuff that’s totally independent of all of that.

Btw I strongly agree with this.

[Jan Finster]

On 11/13/2023 at 2:26 PM, mikelove said:

I do want to emphasize that I’m *not* looking to Pleco-infuse anything here; I might put a small “sponsored by Pleco” link somewhere, but that’s about all I’m considering. If you want to start a thread an out how Pleco sucks and such-and-such other app is far superior, feel free.

 

Yes, if this is the case, I really welcome the move. I would be worried if Mike would merge the Pleco forum with Chinese-forums though...

 

 

[mikelove]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:51 PM, Jan Finster said:

I would be worried if Mike would merge the Pleco forum with Chinese-forums though...

Oh certainly not - frankly, that separation benefits Pleco at least as much as it benefits Chinese-forums, given how much business we do with Chinese publishers whose good side we would like to remain on.

[Jan Finster]

What about Imron BTW, I have not "seen" him around here in a long time... (?)

[OneEye]

On 11/14/2023 at 11:08 PM, roddy said:

I was quietly confident the move would be welcomed and I'm glad to see I was right

You've definitely "done your time" and built an amazing and valuable place, and I'm not sure I could think of a better person to leave the site to.

[roddy]

On 11/15/2023 at 2:09 AM, Jan Finster said:

What about Imron BTW, I have not "seen" him around here in a long time... (?)

He still passes through, but I think like me he's not quite got the time for the site he used to.